to ask how many of you would consider ending your lives at Dignitas or a similar clinic when you are elderly?

[signedsealeddelivered]

I've seen old age and I don't like the look of it. My family, genetically, all die of the same thing and it is not a pleasant death. It is a slow, suffering, confusing one where the mind and the body are both affected. I realise not everybody's experience is like this, but just wondered if these thoughts enter other people's heads too?

I don't see old age as pleasant (I mean 80--85+) Your partner is likely to die before you if you're a woman and you're straight, your friends die, your children have their own lives and you have very little to give them apart from financially (which you could also do via an inheritance.) You're hardly physically up for childcare of Grandchildren or extensive travel. If you have a dog or a pet, it's difficult to walk it or care for it. There are often a few chronic health problems if not a few serious health problems too. Illnesses hit you harder, falls hit you harder. You often stop driving and lose your freedom. There's also confusion, memory loss, muddling things up. Then there's the physical, emotional or financial burden you would potentially put on your family if you had to go into a home or receive care.

This is not a state I'd want to live in while the essentials of my body continued to tick over, and I'd rather take matters into my own hands and decide when I pass away.

I'm just wondering if this is a common thought amongst others too?

if the choice becomes normalised ... There are all sorts of bad choices in life that have become 'normalised' yet we still hold people to account for their own actions. We teach children from very early about peer pressure and how to deal with it. If you are so easily swayed after 60 years of life as to kill yourself because your friends did it then to bad.

Isn't it bizarre that we keep ten of thousands of elderly people warehoused in almost inhumane conditions just because someone somewhere enjoys watching Coronation Street and wouldn't be able to stop themselves committing suicide if their friend did it?

It's not about killing yourself because your friends did, it's killing yourself because you are a burden to your children and there is a societally accepted route to solve that.

Look, on balance I think I agree that there should be the choice but I think you're being quite flippant about the complications and possible influences.

Who judges? Each of us does for ourselves.

The idea that allowing a person to choose their own peaceful end means that ' knock granny on the head to get the money' is also allowed is partly why there is so much suffering, because the law change keeps getting blocked.

And if your religious beliefs mean you don't want euthanasia, I fully support that. Unfortunately that is another reason why the choice for others gets blocked - we have law makers who have powers solely because they are religious leaders and so they won't allow it for the rest.

I don't think I would consider it. I have a profoundly disabled child and I don't think I could make the decision to leave him without my help although I appreciate at the end I may not be much help to him.

killing yourself because you are a burden to your children, why is that not an acceptable reason? I know a lot of people, including myself, who would prefer to go at a time of their choosing rather than be a burden.

Yes - i have worked out an initial plan to go to dignitas.
if alzheimers doesn't get me, then cancer will - both of which are rife in my family.

I can't stand the thought that my mum might kill herself rather than be a burden to me.

I would consider it. I don't know how I would feel with a terminal illness or age related degeneration, but I wish the option was more open to people. A lot of people are left to suffer in a way that we don't even allow our pets to.

I would also dispute that old age is necessarily a time of misery. Happiness peaks at 65-79, and even people in their 90's have similar levels of happiness and life satisfaction as people in their 20's and 30's although they rank their lives as less worthwhile (perhaps because others also perceive them as so).

Actually, middle aged women are the least happy, so may not be best places to judge the life quality of others.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-35471624

This is a bit flippantly put, of course for many individuals facing life limiting or terminal illness, and intense amounts of suffering, these average statistics are meaningless, which is why I support a very tightly controlled model of assisted suicide.

But the premise of the OP seems to be old age is crap and you'd be better off dead than in a home or with some disability, which I don't think is true and can be as much about how you are valued in old age as what being old is really like- barring severe illness, which can happen at any age unfortunately.

Yes, I would.

I think it's insane that individuals aren't allowed to take responsibility for this - you can choose to give birth almost however you please (in theory!), yet you don't have enough sovereignty over that same body to decide when it's had enough, or, more importantly, when it will have had enough.

It shouldn't matter that some people feel their god wouldn't like it, or that some people have an idea that other people might do it because they feel a burden - everyone should have the option.

I believe this is a way more appropriate subject for a referendum than the EU.
I would and I absolutely think we need the option in the UK. Life is fetishised so much to the point that we value life in whatever form over quality of life - that may be fine for some but not for me.

I hope by the time I'm elderly you can just take a pill or something and avoid a long prolonged illness.

I've just watched my father slowly suffocate to death over a period of years thanks to COPD. My grandfather ended up blind, deaf, with both legs amputated living a "life" you wouldn't let a dog live.

No thanks - I wish to spare my family and myself any of that painful, undignified, prolonged ending.

Do I miss my dad? More than I can express. Would I rather he'd gone 3 years ago rather than suffer the way he did during his last few years? Absolutely.

I'm not sure tbh. The idea of not being able to physically look after myself, dying a long painful death or getting Alzheimer's terrifies me - but equally so does dying.

And I agree with splendide I couldn't bear it if my mum chose to do it rather than be a burden so I don't see how I could do it to my son.

I'm going to if I get the diagnosis I think I will.

Yes I would

I've worked with Alzheimer's patients. It's cruel, not the least to their family who have to watch their parent die slowly over a period of years. By the time their body dies, they are no longer the person they were.

I have a friend who had a late diagnosis of Huntington's. She's not in a country where she can access Dignitas or anything similar so the family suffer as much as her. It's progressive and inevitable. There are still points when the person she once was still appear but they are happening less and less. She's angry, aggressive and losing the ability to do even the simplest tasks. She still has a quality of life, but there will come a time fairly soon where that will become minimal. After that it's just a case of hunkering down, enduring it and waiting for the end.

Finally, I watched a sister die a horrible death from cancer. The last 2 weeks of her life were unremitting pain despite all the palliative care she received. Anyone who suggests that it's immoral to offer her relief from that agony is simply cruel and heartless.

Slug, I'm so sorry about your friend. My dad's Huntington's diagnosis was late too - he was 70. He hadn't been right for many years though, but we didn't know it was in our family til he was admitted to hospital after a fall.

If someone feels like they are a burden then they probably are, doesn't mean the family doesn't want to shoulder that burden.

But if you put it the other way around... Imagine your mother wanted assisted suicide because she was a burden, do you think they should be forced to stay alive just because a child doesn't like the idea of their parent choosing to end their life?

Why do so many families not want to shoulder the burden of parents with dementia, yet think the state should take on the burden and expense of looking after them even when the person just wants to die?

I think cory raises a good point. There's lot of use of the word "burden" in these posts, lots of talk of quality of life etc.

For example "Warehoused in an oap home and having someone else wipe your bottom is not quality of life for me. Or being looked after by your children, being a drain on their finances and a burden on their lifestyle, just seems so incredibly selfish"

I can't always wipe my own bottom. My DCs sometimes look after me. I won't get better (unless medicine develops significantly) Am I being selfish not to end my life?

I'm in my 40s. Despite other people having to do personal care for me, not being able to work and being in constant pain I think my loved ones lives are better with me in it than without. I also don't want them to be without my life insurance when I die, which they would be if took matters into my own hands. If I didn't have them to consider, I don't know what I would do, I may well want to end my life.

I think it's very very easy to say "I would definitely do it" when you're not in that position. I think people should also think about their posts and what they are saying, for people who are in that position, with both mental and physical conditions.

Well that was an apt cross post. I can't read this any more:

Aveiam
I don't know what you are facing but I am thinking about you. I hope that you have people who care about you around you and supporting you through this.

I've seen my grandparents all die. They lived lifestyles of varying degrees of health, but all the deaths were hard and nasty and torturous for those who had to witness them.

Not for me. If the option is open, I'll end it quietly on my own terms.

People not wanting to live with certain conditions is one thing but I think talking about burdens is setting off in a dangerous direction.

I would but only if it didn't invalid my life insurance

Miffle I can't speak for other pp but my views on this subject relate to me personally. I would never say that there are certain criteria that should be applied to everyone to decide what is a good quality of life. I am in my fifties and have always felt the way I do but when my children were young I would have wanted to be there for them no matter what.
I understand that it may be easy for those of us not in your position to be so convinced of what we would do but I really believe that everyone should have the choice (free from coersion and guilt)
Looking at it from a purely economic point of view by the time I would be facing this decision ( if I am extremely lucky) the NHS is going to be very starved of resources with so many people living longer. Harsh decisions are going to have to be made and for every person who decides on euthanasia, funds will be available to assist people who are still enjoying life (sorry to be blunt but with the postcode lottery for drugs and treatment that exists at the moment things are only going to get worse).

Yes I would consider it. I fully support every adult individuals right to end their own life, for whatever reason really.